Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC (24 June 1850 – 5 June 1916) was a British Field Marshal, diplomat and statesman.

Early life

Kitchener was born in Ballylongford, County Kerry in Ireland, son of Henry Horatio Kitchener and Frances Anne Chevallier-Cole. Educated in Switzerland and at the Royal Military Academy, he offered to fight with the French in the Franco-Prussian War before he joined the Royal Engineers in 1871. He served in Palestine, Egypt, and Cyprus as a surveyor, learned Arabic, and prepared detailed topographical maps of the areas.

He later served as a Vice-Consul in Anatolia, and in 1884 as an Aide de Camp during the failed Gordon relief expedition in the Sudan. At this time his fiancée, and possibly the only love of his life, Hermione Baker, died of typhoid fever in Cairo; he subsequently had no issue. But he raised his young great-niece Bertha Chevallier-Boutell, daughter of Kitchener's first-cousin, Sir Francis Hepburn de Chevallier-Boutell.

Survey of Western Palestine

In 1874, at age 24, Kitchener was assigned by the Palestine Exploration Fund to a mapping-survey of the Holy Land, replacing Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, who had died of malaria (Silberman 1982). Kitchener, then an officer in the Royal Engineers, joined fellow Royal Engineer Claude R. Conder and between 1874 and 1877, they surveyed what is today Israel and Palestine, returning to England only briefly in 1875 after an attack by locals in the Galilee, at Safed (Silberman 1982). Conder and Kitchener’s expedition became known as the Survey of Western Palestine because it was largely confined to the area west of the Jordan River (Hodson 1997). The survey collected data on the topography and toponomy of the area, as well as local flora and fauna. The results of the survey were published in an eight volume series, with Kitchener’s contribution in the first three tomes (Conder and Kitchener 1881-1885). This survey has had a lasting effect on the Middle East for several reasons. The ordinance survey serves as the basis for the grid-system used in the modern maps of Israel and Palestine. In addition, the collection of data compiled by Conder and Kitchener are still consulted by archaeologists and geographers working in the southern Levant. Finally, the survey itself effectively delineated and defined the political borders of the southern Levant. For instance, the modern border between Israel and Lebanon is established at the point in the upper Galilee where Conder and Kitchener’s survey stopped (Silberman 1982).

Egypt, Sudan and Khartoum

He won national fame on his second tour in the Sudan (1886–1899), being made Aide de Camp to Queen Victoria and collecting a Knighthood of the Bath. After becoming Sirdar of the Egyptian Army he headed the victorious Anglo-Egyptian army at the Battle of Omdurman on September 2, 1898, a victory made possible by the massive rail construction program he had instituted in the area.

Kitchener quite possibly prevented war between France and Britain when he dealt firmly but non-violently with the French military expedition to claim Fashoda, in what became known as the Fashoda Incident.

He was created Baron Kitchener, of Khartoum and of Aspall in the County of Suffolk, on 18 November 1898 as a victory title commemorating his successes, and began a programme restoring good governance to the Sudan. The programme had a strong foundation based on education, Gordon Memorial College being its centrepiece, and not simply for the children of the local elites - children from anywhere could apply to study.

He ordered the mosques of Khartoum rebuilt and instituted reforms which recognised Friday - the Muslim holy day - as the official day of rest, and guaranteed freedom of religion to all citizens of the Sudan. He went so far as to prevent evangelical Christian missionaries from attempting to convert Muslims to Christianity.

Kitchener rescued a substantial charitable fund which had been diverted into the pockets of the Khedive of Egypt, and put it to use improving the lives of the ordinary Sudanese.

He also reformed the debt laws, preventing rapacious moneylenders from stripping away all assets of impoverished farmers, guaranteeing them five acres (20 000 m²) of land to farm for themselves and the tools to farm with. In 1899 Kitchener was presented with a small island in the Nile at Aswan as in gratitude for his services; the island was renamed Kitchener's Island in his honour.

The Boer War

During the Second Boer War (1899–1902), Kitchener arrived with Lord Roberts and the massive British reinforcements of December 1899. Kitchener was made overall commander in November 1900 following Roberts' removal due to illness.

Following the defeat of the conventional Boer forces, and the failure of a reconciliatory peace treaty in February 1901 (due to British cabinet veto) that Kitchener had negotiated with the Boer leaders, Kitchener inherited and expanded the successful strategies devised by Roberts to crush the Boer guerrillas.

In a brutal campaign, these strategies removed civilian support from the Boers with a scorched earth policy of destroying Boer farms, building blockhouses, and moving civilians into concentration camps. Conditions in these camps, which had been conceived by Roberts as a form of humanitarian aid to the families whose farms he had destroyed, began to rapidly degenerate as the large influx of Boers outstripped the minuscule ability of the British to cope. Despite being largely rectified by late 1901, they led to wide opprobrium in Britain and Europe, but especially amongst South Africans. Their biggest critic was Cornish humanitarian and welfare worker Emily Hobhouse.

The Boer commandos had no uniform, they fought in their ordinary civilian attire. On long service, as the state of their clothing became progressively worse, many resorted to taking the clothes of captured troops. This was widely perceived by British commanders as an attempt to masquerade as British soldiers in order to gain a tactical advantage in battle; in response Kitchener ordered that Boers found wearing British uniforms were to be tried on the spot and the sentence, death, confirmed by the commanding officer. This order - which Kitchener later denied issuing - led to the famous Breaker Morant case, in which several Australian soldiers, including the celebrated horseman and bush poet Lt. Harry "Breaker" Morant, were arrested and court-martialled for summarily executing Boer prisoners and civilians including children and Africans, and also the murder of a German missionary.

Morant and another Australian, Lt. Peter Handcock, were found guilty, sentenced to death and shot by firing squad at Pietersburg on 27 February 1902. Their death warrants were personally signed by Kitchener. The trial and execution remain controversial, especially in Australia, where it is widely believed that the court-martial was flawed, that Kitchener disappeared on tour immediately following the trial in order to prevent a last-minute appeal, and that Morant and Handcock were scapegoats who unfairly took the blame for the killings in order to cover up the extent of Kitchener's no prisoners policy. This situation has been exacerbated by the loss of the court-martial documents relating to the case, leaving only a book written by one of the men found guilty, George Witton, as primary evidence of the proceedings.

The Treaty of Vereeniging was signed in 1902 following a tense six months. During this period Kitchener struggled against the Governor of the Cape Colony and the British government; eventually he won a peace of reconciliation that recognised certain rights of the Boers and promised future self-government. (Louis Botha, the Boer leader Kitchener negotiated his aborted peace treaty with in 1901, became the first Prime Minister of the self-governing Union of South Africa in 1910.) The Treaty also agreed to pay for reconstruction following the end of hostilities. Six days later Kitchener was created Viscount Kitchener, of Khartoum and of the Vaal in the Colony of Transvaal and of Aspall in the County of Suffolk.

India and Egypt

Following this, Kitchener was made Commander-in-Chief in India (1902–1909), where he reconstructed the greatly disorganised Indian army, against the wishes of the bellicose viceroy Lord Curzon of Kedleston, who became a passionate and lifelong enemy. Kitchener was promoted to the highest Army rank, Field Marshal, in 1910; however, largely due to a Curzon-inspired whispering campaign, he was turned down for the post of Viceroy of India in 1911. He then returned to Egypt as British Governor General of Egypt and the Sudan (1911–1914, during the formal reign of 'Abbas Hilmi II as Khedive (nominally Ottoman Viceroy) of Egypt, Sovereign of Nubia, of the Sudan, of Kordofan and of Darfur).

He was created Earl Kitchener, of Khartoum and of Broome in the County of Kent, on 29 June 1914. Unusually, provision was made for the title to be passed on to his brother and nephew, since Kitchener was not married and had no children.

World War I

At the outset of World War I, the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith quickly had Lord Kitchener appointed Secretary of State for War. Against cabinet opinion, Kitchener correctly predicted a long war that would last at least three years, require huge new armies to defeat Germany, and suffer huge casualties before the end would come.

A massive recruitment campaign began, which soon featured a distinctive poster of himself, taken from a magazine front cover. It has proved to be one of the most enduring images of World War I and could have encouraged large numbers of volunteers, although it has often been parodied since.

In an effort to find a way to relieve pressure on the Western front, he proposed an invasion of Iskenderun with ANZAC, New Army and Indian troops. Alexandretta was an area with a large Christian population and was the strategic centre of the Ottoman Empire's railway network - its capture would have cut the empire in two. Yet he was eventually persuaded to support Winston Churchill's disastrous Gallipoli campaign in 1915–1916. That failure, combined with the Shell Crisis of 1915, was to deal Kitchener's political reputation a heavy blow; he offered to resign but Asquith refused, although responsibility for munitions was moved to a new ministry headed by David Lloyd George. In May 1916 preparations were made for Kitchener and Lloyd George to visit Russia on a diplomatic mission. Lloyd George was otherwise engaged with his new Ministry and so it was decided to send Kitchener alone.

A week before his death Kitchener confided to Lord Derby that he intended to press relentlessly for a peace of reconciliation, regardless of his position, when the war was over, as he feared that the politicians would make a bad peace.

On 4 June 1916, he personally answered questions asked by politicians about his running of the war effort; at the start of hostilities Kitchener ordered 2 million rifles with various US arms manufacturers. Only 480 of these rifles had arrived in the UK by 4 June 1916. The numbers of shells supplied were no less paltry. Kitchener explained the efforts he had made in order to secure alternative supplies. He received a resounding vote of thanks from the 200+ MPs who had arrived to question him, both for his candour and for his efforts to keep the troops armed; Sir George Arthur, who, a week before, had introduced the failed vote of censure in the House of Commons against Kitchener's running of the War Department, personally seconded the motion.

Death and controversy

At Scapa Flow, Lord Kitchener embarked aboard the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire for his diplomatic mission to Russia. On 5 June 1916, while en route to the Russian port of Arkhangelsk, Hampshire struck a mine laid by the German U-boat U-75 during a Force 9 gale and sank west of the Orkney Islands. Kitchener, his staff, and 643 of the crew of 655 were drowned or died of exposure. His body was never found. The survivors who caught sight of him in those last moments testified to his outward calm and resolution. The same day, the last Division of Kitchener's New Army crossed the channel to take up its positions in Flanders and France where, eventually, and despite numerous setbacks, they helped to defeat Germany in 1918.

Following his death the town of Berlin, Ontario, Canada, was renamed Kitchener in his honour. Mount Kitchener in the Canadian Rockies was also named in his honour. A memorial was erected in his honour on the nearby cliffs.

In the City of Geelong, Victoria, Australia the Kitchener Memorial Hospital was named in his honour. It is now known as Geelong Hospital. The original building is still in use although it no longer houses patients.

A month after his death the Lord Kitchener National Memorial Fund was set up by the Lord Mayor of London to honour his memory. It was used to aid casualties of the war, both practically and financially; following the war's end, the fund was used to enable university educations for soldiers, ex-soldiers and their sons, a function it continues to perform today.

The suddenness of Kitchener's death, combined with his great fame and the fact that his body was never recovered, almost immediately gave rise to conspiracy theories that have continued almost to this day.

The fact that newly-appointed Minister of Munitions (and future prime minister) David Lloyd-George was supposed to accompany Kitchener on the fatal journey, but canceled at the last moment, has been given great significance by some. This fact, along with the alleged lethargy of the rescue efforts, has led some to claim that Kitchener was assassinated, or, somewhat more plausibly, that his death would have been convenient for a British establishment that had come to see him as figure from the past who was incompetent to wage modern war. Given that Kitchener's death hit Britain like a thunderclap (it's been compared to the death of Princess Diana), and was widely perceived as a disaster for the war effort, this interpretation seems far-fetched, to say the least.

After the war, there were a number of conspriacy theories put forward, one by Lord Alfred Douglas (better known as Oscar Wilde's lover), positing a connection between Kitchener's death, the recent naval Battle of Jutland, Winston Churchill and a Jewish conspiracy. (Churchill successfully sued Douglas for criminal libel and the latter spent six months in prison.) Another claimed that the Hampshire did not strike a mine at all, but was sunk by explosives secreted in the vessel by the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Probably the most spectacular Kitchener-related conspiracy was the effort in 1926 by a hoaxer named Frank Power to actually recover and bury Kitchener's body, which he claimed had been found by a Norwegian fisherman. He brought a coffin back from Norway and prepared it for burial in St. Paul's. At this point, however, the authorities intervened and the coffin was opened in the presence of police and a distinguished pathologist. The box was found to contain only tar for weight. There was widespread public outrage at Power, but he was ultimately never prosecuted.^*

The 1969 Dino DeLaurentis film "Fraulein Doktor" posited that a German spy knew Kitchener's travel plans and provided them to the captain of U-75.

Bibliography

Yolande Hodson, "Kitchener, Horatio Herbert," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, ed. Eric M. Meyers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Pages 300–301 ISBN 0195112172

Neil Asher Silberman, Digging for God and Country: Exploration, Archaeology and the Secret Struggle for the Holy Land 1799–1917 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982). ISBN 0394511395

C. R. Conder and H. H. Kitchener, Survey of Western Palestine: Memoirs of Topography, Orography, Hydrography and Archaeology, ed. E. H. Palmer and W. Besant, 3 vols. (London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1881–1885).

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